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Mercanta Holiday Campaign for Food 4 Farmers

Posted on December 10 2018

Food 4 Farmers works with coffee producers and their families to bring locally grown, healthy food to the heart of their communities. In these rural areas, most food is trucked in from cities – or even other countries – and usually packaged, processed, and full of fat, starch, and sugar.

This year Mercanta will be matching the gifts* you make to Food 4 Farmers instead of sending holiday cards between now and January 1, 2019.

Why Food 4 Farmers?

So many reasons. The organisation promotes, facilitates and supports very important projects in food security, food sovereignty and supplementary income in coffee growing communities. If you need more reason to donate…. how about these:

We must think holistically about supply chains – Mercanta pays exceptional prices. Despite this, we should never assume that our network and supply chain encompasses all segments of the wider coffee community. We know that our impact through sustainable, outright pricing is deep and lasting.. but we also know that (for now) it is limited. Less than it was 20 years ago, but we can not reach every producer in every community. And we need to remember that community isn’t just about our own kitchen table, and environmentalism isn’t just about our own back garden.

Food Security can mean financial security – We know that Food 4 Farmers reaches far beyond our immediate supply chain and creates resources for the most vulnerable producers in the most vulnerable communities. Many of these producers are not in the position (for various reasons) to reach the specialty markets in which we participate. F4F creates really interesting projects that help farmers not only put food on the table year round (and yes this is an issue for many small producers) but also create supplemental sources of income. These industries can even supplant coffee (where coffee production has little potential to become lucrative) and at the very least help producers ‘bridge the gap’ in a way that can help them invest more in coffee quality in the long term.

Community led, community developed – Food 4 Farmers’ programmes are community led. F4F help facilitate, but they do not dictate the projects that communities choose to implement.

Food on the table is a human right – Ultimately, being able to feed your kids and family year round is pretty much something I hope we can all get behind!

We encourage you to make a donation to Food 4 Farmers this season! If you quote our name we will match your gift* . #dontsendmeacard #setthetable